Blog · Step by step

How to hand a WhatsApp chat from the bot to a person, without the bot talking over them

By the Super Agent team · October 24, 2026

The problem: a bot that doesn't know when to stop

Some questions an agent should not settle alone: a wholesale price, a discount that isn't on the list, a complaint about a damaged order. A bot without a handoff makes up an answer, or says "let me connect you with an agent" and keeps replying over whoever stepped in. A good handoff has three parts: the bot stops replying in that chat (and only that one), the customer knows what is happening, and someone on the team hears about it with enough context to answer.

What happens when the agent asks for help

• The AI pauses in that chat. Every other chat is still answered. Whatever the customer writes meanwhile shows in the conversation, but the agent does not reply to it.
• The customer is told, once. With "Send the customer a short acknowledgement when a takeover starts" on, the agent says a person from the team will reply in this same chat. It promises no time and no name.
• You are alerted. The alert always appears under Notifications, and the "Needs you" filter on Conversations gathers the chats waiting for someone. If you also choose WhatsApp, the operator's number gets a message with the priority, the customer, the channel, a summary of what they asked and a link to the conversation.
• It never resumes by itself. Not after a while, and not because you replied: the AI comes back when someone turns the chat's "AI replies" switch back on (the same switch pauses a chat by hand; on WhatsApp the pause covers that customer on all of your numbers). When it does, it skips what arrived during the pause and answers only new messages.

It works on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and your website chat, and on every one of them you can reply by hand from the console.

Step by step

1. Connect your channels under Integrations: your WhatsApp Business number, your Instagram account, your Facebook Page or your website chat.
2. Switch on the tool. In the agent's settings, under "Bring in a real person", turn on "Request human takeover". Initial setup leaves it off, because it first needs to know whom to alert.
3. Choose how you are alerted. Under "Alert me via", the in-app alert is always on. To get it on WhatsApp too, enter the operator's WhatsApp number and pick the alert template. You can create it from that screen: Meta reviews it, and until it is approved alerts reach the console only. Send a test alert before you rely on it.
4. Write down when to hand over. The tool grants permission; the instructions say when to use it. For example: "Hand the conversation to a person when someone asks for a wholesale price or a discount that isn't on the list, when there is a complaint about a damaged or missing order, or when the customer asks to talk to a person. Complaints are urgent."
5. Test it from another number. If your own contact is marked as the business owner, the agent will not hand you over (there is nobody to hand you to) and answers you directly. Write from a phone that isn't yours, or ask a teammate.
6. Take the chat, then resume. Open it from the alert, reply there, and when you are done turn "AI replies" back on.

An example: a wholesale order

A clothing store's instructions say wholesale orders go to a person, and it has the WhatsApp alert on with the standard template. The customer, the number and the order are made up for the example:

At that moment the operator's phone receives this:

If Laura writes again ("and do you ship to Medellín?"), the message shows in the chat but the agent leaves it alone: a person owns this conversation now. Whoever takes it opens the link, reads what was said and replies from the console. Replying to the alert itself does nothing: it never reaches Laura.

If you reply from the WhatsApp Business app

If the number you connected is the one you also use in the WhatsApp Business app, you can answer from the app or from WhatsApp Web. Those messages show as "Sent from WhatsApp" and pause the AI in that chat on their own, even if the agent never asked for help. Resuming is the same, by hand. The exception is your own owner contact: what you send yourself pauses nothing.

Questions people ask

Can a customer switch the bot off by typing "I want a human"?

That depends on your instructions. If they say asking for a person is a reason to hand over, the agent does. If they don't, it keeps answering: the tool is designed so that a customer cannot turn the AI off just by asking.

What if the WhatsApp alert fails?

The pause holds, the alert stays under Notifications, and the chat reads "Human reply requested — alert failed", with a button to retry it. The bot never ends up replying over the customer.

And if nobody answers in time?

The chat keeps waiting under "Needs you". On WhatsApp, reply soon: 24 hours after the customer's last message you can no longer write freely, and you need a template Meta has approved. Before you create one, read why Meta rejects WhatsApp templates.

How do I know how many chats the agent handles without me?

On Conversations, "Handled without you" counts the chats the agent never had to hand to a person.

So it needs you less often

Every question the agent can settle is one less chat waiting for a person. Put those answers in order with the FAQ generator, put a number on slow replies with the missed replies calculator and, if you sell on Shopify, connect the store so the agent can look up prices, stock and the order of the person writing.